Seth Godin writes about palinodes, with two very humorous poems. He then goes on to write about the benefits of retractions, including:
We’re too slow to admit that we were wrong sometimes.
Ironically, admitting that you’re wrong is very easy to do. The things that stop you from admitting a mistake are not the expected consequences of fessing up – despite what you may think – but your own embarrassment and guilt.
Tiga’s album, Sexor has two hidden tracks on the CD version, spoiling the overall flow of the last phase of the album. Fortunately, the version available on iTunes properly separates these tracks out.
Clara Hill’s new album, which is also on iTunes, has a hidden track near the end.
Hidden tracks used to be a novelty in the early days of CDs, but CDs have been around for over 20 years. It’s not novel now. It’s stupid. Just give me the music.
Update: seems the iTunes encoding on Clara Hill’s album was freaky: the hidden track is actually also the last track, repeated.
Yesterday, I was wondering when Clara Hill would release a new album. Turns out it got released on iTunes yesterday.
All I Can Provide [iTunes]
Higher quality version, from djdownload
Number 5 of 2005 — Ayria: Flicker
Ayria’s debut album, Debris was, by my definition, “EBM meets 21st century club music meets 1980s electronica,” and one of my favourites of 2004.
It’s Been Fun launches Flicker, the lengthy thirteen track follow-up album, and it’s immediately clear that this is somewhat different. The instrumentation and arrangement of many of the earlier songs appears to indicate a simpler, more primal form of synth-based music. When I first listened to the album, I thought that this was a terrible mistake. Fortunately, this view was only fleeting. One evening, a week or so later, I listened to the album again. This time around I realised that this simpler music better reflects the lyrics and the intent of the Ayria ‘project’, whilst giving better scope for Jennifer Parkin’s vocals. Consider the vocal break and drop in Counterblow, where-after the track builds once again into a fierce retribution: “Can’t seem to fix what I’ve broken down / Worn out and now I just don’t care / Stripped down the girl I must repair / You made me do things that I didn’t like / Unfair”.
Thematically, Flicker is “one angry machine” (Selling Rebellion), musically and lyrically, which draws back from the light that was buried within Debris into the darkest places. Darker, even, than Ladytron’s latest album. The lyrics too are, in most places, exquisitely written and delivered. In my review of Kristin Hersh’s The Grotto, I wrote that “I just dig it out every couple of months so it can cut me into little pieces and put me back together again all shiny and new.” Flicker, doesn’t do this. Flicker just breaks me apart, then leaves me abandoned. It’s frightening.
There is one curious exception to this, and I’m still puzzled about its inclusion and its meanings. St. Edith is a string-laden ballad, almost anti-negative. It’s a genuinely calming experience after what has preceded it. But I continue to wonder why it’s on this album. Is it a glimpse into weird gothic positivity, of hope, of faith even?
“I’ve always noticed there’s nothing bigger than all the little things” (Infiltrating My Way Through The System)
By the time one reaches Infiltrating.., it’s clear that the apparently simpler approach is only a veneer, because musically and technically it is a complex animal. None of the songs is short, but none of them outstays their welcome; there are always nuances and further ideas explored. Be Me includes oodles of ideas, including a fabulous percussive vocal cut-up, right before the song temporarily slows down. I love it.
And then there’s Cutting which encapsulates the devastating feelings and physical consequences of self-hatred. But none of these is enough preparation for My Device, which detonates on a short-fuse, containing some of hardest electronica heard in decades, and the most brutal put-downs. Going it alone never felt this good.
After the title track, Flicker (which is about as political as Ayria gets) we’re left with Lovely Day, closing the album. Perhaps the coldest song on the album, full of lonely Tuesday nights, “fearing rejection more than being alone” and “will I ever find someone who understands my mind”. The multi-tracked vocals towards the close of the song are gorgeous, until the album fades out with just guitars.
“I’m overwhelmed again.”
Me too.
Ayria
Ayria MySpace
Kittenflug
Flicker [iTunes]
Debris [iTunes]
Just realised one positive side-effect of Agile Development: you can develop stuff safe in the knowledge that at some point in the future (possibly, near-future), you can, will and want to refactor.
That’s completely different to refactoring in other types of development, which requires much greater expenditure of effort and has considerable inertia associated with it.
Furthermore, refactoring during Agile Development actually exposes opportunities for introducing new features that meet or exceed users’ expectations.
I didn’t start this, Buecher.de did. The track timings for Tori Amos’ A Piano: The Collection. Repeat after me: “2006 Remastered LP Version”..
Approximately 6 months ago, I developed a feature for one of our websites enabling one-click downloads of Microsoft Word mail merge documents, automatically hooked into the results of a database query. To do this seamlessly, I used Ajax, and built the feature using a PHP Ajax library called cpaint.
It ended up being a bit nerve-wracking to develop, and frankly a little bit difficult to understand. However it does work.
Since then, we’ve discovered three essential Javascript libraries which help build interactive websites:
The last of these includes Ajax support, including in-place editing (should you need it). Over the past couple of days I’ve worked on a dashboard view for the aforementioned website. The dashboard provides users with a one page summary of everything that’s important to know.
These libraries have made the development so much quicker, and easier to understand. During this weekend I added another component to the dashboard which provides up-to-date sales summaries for a week, including in place editing for additional sales figures. However, rather than use the in place editing feature provided by Scriptaculous, I wrote my own because I needed particular control over how it behaved, and how it affected other parts of the page.
That’s not all though. One huge benefit was provided by the essential Firebug Firefox add-on, which includes diagnostic support for XMLHTTPRequests (the cornerstone of Ajax).
All of this makes developing interactive web applications so much easier, and indeed a pleasure.
My personal abbreviation, almost equivalent to More Social Networking. Yes folks, social search engine Wink is launching version 2.0 of its service next week. Wink indexes tagged content from Digg, Yahoo MyWeb, Furl, Slashdot and other MFSN services. It just got $6.2m in funding.
Super.
In other news (the MFPMT category) Zoho Projects has launched, offering project management services, like: tasks, milestones, calendar, status, time tracking, forums and file sharing.. Hmm.. sounds familiar.
A Man Called Adam:
Take the gloves from my hands
I'm not licensed to wear them
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